Glossary · Telephony & India rules
What do TCCCPR rules say about A2P calls?
TCCCPR and A2P voice calls
TCCCPR is TRAI's rulebook for commercial calls and messages in India. An A2P (application-to-person) call is one that software places without a person dialling it, and TRAI's 2026 amendment gives it rules of its own.
On a call
A lender's AI agent rings its borrowers with EMI reminders. Software dials every call and an artificial voice speaks, so these are A2P calls. Once the new rule takes effect, the lender has to declare them to its telecom operator first, along with the numbers they come from.
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Explained
Here is how it works, in plain words.
TCCCPR stands for the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018. It’s the reason bank messages arrive from a short header instead of a phone number.
The rules start by sorting every commercial call into a type. A promotional call sells something. A service call tells a customer about something they already bought, like a delivery. A transactional call follows something the customer just did, like an OTP. Each type has its own consent rules, and a pitch mixed into a service call turns the whole call promotional.
Senders register with a telecom operator, and their records sit on a shared ledger, the DLT platform. Promotional calls belong on the 140 series. Service and transactional robo calls go on the 1600 series, which DoT set aside for them.
The Third Amendment, notified in September 2026, adds A2P calls. These are calls an application starts without a person dialling, including autodialled, pre-recorded and artificial-voice calls. Every sender has to declare A2P use to its operator in advance, with the ranges of numbers it will call from. An undeclared A2P call is treated as spam.
It also adds a small charge as a deterrent. The receiving operator may bill the calling operator up to five paise a minute for A2P calls. Calls from the series set aside for commercial calls are exempt.
TRAI gave its reason in numbers. Of the connections operators cut off for these violations in April 2026, about three in four were SIP or PRI lines used for A2P calls.
For a business using an AI agent, the practical list is short: register as a sender, call from the right series, declare A2P use, keep consent records, and scrub DND.
This is a summary, not legal advice. Read TRAI’s text, linked below, with your counsel.
In Voice Infra
This is what Voice Infra does about it.
Our docs are plain about who does what. We enforce the calling window you set on a campaign and your own opt-out list, while registration, consent and DND scrubbing stay with the business placing the calls. We don't sell 140-series numbers yet, and the console says so in one line when an outreach pool uses regular mobile numbers.
Questions
People often ask us these questions.
Does an AI voice agent's call count as an A2P call?
TRAI's 2026 definition covers calls an application or automated platform starts without a person dialling, including calls using artificial voice. An AI agent's outbound campaign call fits that wording. TRAI also said the network can't tell when a live person joins, so it made no exception for that.
When do the A2P rules start?
TRAI notified the amendment on 18 September 2026. The A2P declaration and the A2P termination charge take effect sixty days after the amendment's publication in the Gazette.
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